


hold hard then, heart

by linil



Series: take heart with the day, and begin again [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, aftermath of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24403708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linil/pseuds/linil
Summary: They’re barely nine when it really strikes Fred for the first time that they look remarkably similar.“Say, Georgie — what’s it like being so handsome?”George looks up from the broom he’s trying to glare into submission, and his face scrunches up for a second, staring at Fred with obvious confusion. Then it evens out, splitting into a smile that pulls higher towards his right ear than his left.“Well, I don’t know, Freddie; why don’t you tell me?”
Relationships: Fred Weasley & George Weasley
Series: take heart with the day, and begin again [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762309
Comments: 49
Kudos: 182





	hold hard then, heart

**Author's Note:**

> i’m genuinely sorry, i hate angst with my entire being but for some reason this is the only thing i can write i just banged this out in three hours
> 
> edit: changed the title, now from The Fist by Derek Walcott

When they’re born, they almost don’t make it. 

Molly spends hours and hours holding tight to the unspooling thread of survival, hoping and wishing and praying to whatever fucking god those muggles believe in that these two boys don’t kill her or themselves. 

And then, they’re here. Gasping and crying and kind of ugly, but beautiful all the same because they’re _hers_. Arthur sobs beside her and her face is wet with tears and she’s so, _so_ tired, but these precious boys are _hers._

He sits on the floor, on the cracked tiles of Hogwarts, and he screams and wails and sobs and chokes and _rages_. Because it was never meant to be like this; he wasn’t meant to be knelt here on bruised shins, clutching the hand of the only person who’d ever really known him and wishing for a time turner for the first time in his young, so young, horribly young, life. He would break every law for his brother, he would risk incarceration and death if it meant just one more moment with him. They were meant to make it, the two of them. Just one more second to say _please, I love you, I can’t live without you, I’m lost without you, I need you, please —_

* * *

Fred knows innately that he would die for his brother. 

It’s different for the others: Charlie and Bill are old, they know how to take care of themselves and they’re on the way to the rest of their lives even as Fred and George are giggling in grass that towers high above them. And Fred loves Percy, with the same clueless love that every six year old is capable of, but Percy is different and tiny little Ron is different, for all that Fred feels a surge of sheer happiness when he looks at this ickle wickle baby. Because Fred loves them, but he knows if the time came he would hold his head high and walk straight into annihilation for George. He loves them, but he loves George and that makes all the difference. 

George attends the funeral, because of course he does.

He almost doesn’t. His mum runs trembling fingers through his hair (the same hair, just like hers, just like _his_ ) and begs him to come with waterlogged words. He’s spent a week sat in this same spot, in this same bed (his, _his_ ) and he stopped feeling real three days ago.

(Maybe if he isn’t real, none of this will have been real; he’ll wake up one day and there will be Fred, bright and burning and he’ll say _what are you doing in my bed, Georgie? It’s hardly ladylike of you to steal, now is it?_ )

But he goes. Of course he does. 

He goes and he stands and he doesn’t speak. Not a word, not to anyone, not about anything. He stands and he stares and he watches the body dip slowly, slowly down into the ground, flaming orange hair catching the sun one last time before it sinks finally beneath the earth for eternity. He hears them say funeral rites, hears the English flow seamlessly into something else, too unaware to notice the moment it switches. It flows in one ear and doesn’t quite make it out the other. He thinks it might be Welsh. It could be fucking Spanish for all the attention he’s giving. He’s just —

Just staring. At the mound of dirt that used to be his brother.

* * *

They’re barely nine when it really strikes Fred for the first time that they look remarkably similar. 

“Say, Georgie — what’s it like being so handsome?” 

George looks up from the broom he’s trying to glare into submission, and his face scrunches up for a second, staring at Fred with obvious confusion. Then it evens out, splitting into a smile that pulls higher towards his right ear than his left. 

“Well, I don’t know, Freddie; why don’t you tell me?”

George can’t look at himself. He lays every family photo face down and avoids anything reflective like a plague. 

One week after his whole world crumbled around him, he finally makes it out of his (their) room and down towards the kitchen. 

He forgets the mirror in the hallway.

For one blissful, heartbreaking moment, he looks to his right and there’s Fred. Just where he always is. George looks at Fred and wonders where his left ear’s gone, surely George would have noticed that. 

He’s got a comment on the tip of his tongue, a light “Guess we finally match now, right Freddie?” 

And then he remembers and his heart shatters all over again. 

He thinks he can hear the shards clattering to the ground, but that could be the mirror falling to pieces right before his eyes. He watches as silver slivers of his reflection drop to the floor, fragmented and broken. As one shard slips past he sees his face, drowning in tears and scrunched up, before it hits the ground with the rest. 

He didn’t even touch the mirror.

* * *

It’s a fun game they like to play. The moment they realise their mother is often a little preoccupied with seven children, they realise that trickery is laughably easy.

Today Fred is George and George is Fred. 

They make it halfway through the day, no word of anything to anyone, just playing along the same as usual. They almost trip up a few times: a quickly stifled “Geor–“ slipping out of Fred’s mouth here and there; not quite responding quick enough when called (this one isn’t so hard — it’s always ‘Fred and George’, together). 

They get all the way to lunchtime before someone finally notices.

(“George, dear, hand me your plate.” Fred does, and he watches as his mum takes it, ladles gravy onto it, and almost hands it right back before stopping. She looks up. 

They know they’re caught.)

They get better and better, though. They’ve always known each other, better than anyone ever will. They know just how to pretend. Fred rubs his wrist just the way George does when he’s nervous, George laughs sharper and breathier, the way Fred does when a prank goes just right. 

They go entire days sometimes. At Hogwarts, surrounded by people who don’t have the benefit of years of exposure, it’s too easy. They switch between them: in Charms they’re Fred and George, and then in Potions they’re George and Fred, and then at lunch it could be either at any given moment, no rhyme or reason, and everyone around them is left reeling and unsure. 

Sometimes, Fred forgets who he’s meant to be. He thinks George might too. They’ll be playing each other for a moment and Fred will catch himself thinking _I hope Fred knows the answer to this one, I’m stuck_. Sometimes, they’re just themselves, a grace period for the other dazed first years, and Fred will still hear his own mind say _Fred’s got his tie on wrong again_. 

It sort of scares him sometimes. But it’s George, so it’s fine.

Eventually, he reopens Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. There’s been enough sorrow, they could all use some fun. 

Ron falls in line with him behind the counter. They don’t speak much. George loves him all the same for it.

It’s hard to look at the shop, look at his and Fred’s dream, full of jokes and pranks, and feel anything other than bone-deep sadness. He doesn’t know if that’ll ever stop being the case. But sometimes it’s dulled, just a numb ache somewhere in his ribcage, and his smiles almost feel real. 

And then, one day when the shop is busy, he’s handing a kid a bag of puking pastilles and calls over his shoulder, “George, we need to restock the extendable ears,” and takes the kid’s coins and puts them in the till. When he doesn’t get a reply he turns, brow furrowed, some snarky comment ready to go, but all he sees is Ron, looking confused and also horribly like he might burst into tears. 

George replays the last twenty seconds in his head, and has to go to the back room to scream into a cushion for ten minutes.

* * *

Mum gets them confused even when they’re not doing it on purpose. 

She calls Fred to pick up George’s laundry, and tells George he’s left Fred’s broom out in the rain again. Fred doesn’t mind. 

Mum calls George Fred once and only once. 

It leaves the both of them weeping on the floor, mum clutching at clothes that Fred wore scant months ago.

* * *

In seventh year they’re practising patronuses in the Room of Requirement, and two spectral birds come fluttering out of the tips of their wands when they finally get it right. 

“Well, take a look at that, George. We’re certified aurors, now.” Fred’s eyes follow the glowing birds across the room, rising and dipping and twining around and around each other. 

“Sure are, Fred. What was your memory?” 

“Filching the Marauder’s Map from Filch.”

Fred knows innately, the way he knows everything about George, that his answer is the same. His grin tells him so. 

George holds out his arm and his patronus comes swooping down to land, ghostly claws barely a pinprick against his arm. Fred’s comes to rest on his shoulder. 

“They’re magpies,” George says, running one finger gently down the plumage. The bird squawks in appreciation. 

Fred smiles. “Well, of course.” He walks over and ruffles George’s hair, giggling at the way he puffs up like the bird on his arm. “‘Two for joy’, don’t you know?”

George can’t summon his patronus. 

He stares at the headstone and tries to think of every good memory he’s ever had. His wand splutters, gasping out thin tendrils of pearly mist, and he wracks his brain desperately for some shred of happiness. 

They almost got Ron to make an Unbreakable Vow. That was pretty funny. They set off that dung bomb under Aunt Muriel’s chair. They stole the Map from Filch. They got places on the quidditch team together as beaters. They busted Harry out of his house with a flying car. They danced together at the Yule Ball. They left Hogwarts with a bang the way they always knew they would. They set up their shop together, their dream, everything they’d ever wanted. Fred joked about his ear. 

Fred died. 

He’s in every single memory. Memories George has always loved only make his eyes sting with tears because they were all with Fred. 

His magpie doesn’t come. Maybe it’s better that way. ‘One for sorrow’, don’t you know?

* * *

Fred dies laughing, beside Percy, and all he can think in the seconds before he’s gone is _well who’s going to look after little Georgie now?_

George stands at his grave crying, and all he can think is _we were meant to make it, you and me, Freddie._


End file.
